This blog is made up from press releases sent to me by Thanet organisations or individuals and information gathered from the Thanet District Council website. If you send me a press release for publication here please make it clear what the title is, which bit you want in the comment part and what you want it tagged at the bottom e.g. Steve Ladyman press release. Press releases should be sent to me by email at this email address michaelchild@aol.com just text and images not pdf.

Saturday, 16 February 2013

My Article in The Times this week on Food

When Sir Terry Leahy appeared on Desert Island Discs he rightly trumpeted the decline in food bills from 50 per cent to 10 per cent of family income. His remarks were broadcast just days before the horsemeat scandal revealed fraud in the food supply chain. That was not a coincidence.

However, in the past five years we have seen food prices increase by a third. This problem will only get worse as we feel the effects of the American drought, Russia’s recent grain export ban and ever greater Chinese demand. The era of cheap food is, sadly, over.

But in a highly competitive market our food industry has not changed its business model. Instead it has tried to adapt to food inflation by fitting a more expensive product into a cheap price structure. The result is that serious corners have been cut.

Retailers blithely claim that they are absorbing the costs of rises in prices of meat and grain. But the truth is that the consumer is unwittingly “absorbing” them through reductions in the quality of ingredients and smaller quantities.

So the £1 cottage pie in your local freezer shop will be the same price that it has been for years, but today will contain less meat and more artificial fillers such as high fructose corn syrup. This will not be accompanied by an ad campaign saying “30 per cent less meat”. Packaging too is “absorbing” food price rises, so there is an increase in the fresh air you are now buying when you reach for your cereal packets.

It is the poorest people who are most vulnerable to both the price rises and the decline in food quality. The horsemeat scandal has focused on the role of supermarkets and their supply chains, but there is a whole sector of the population who can’t afford to shop in supermarkets.

Some of my constituents in Kent buy their food from pound shops, cornershops or takeaways, where the quality can be lower. In some neighbourhoods, a proportion of families in privately rented homes do not even have a cooker: they have to rely on a microwave and fast food.

Britain will have to change its approach to food. We cannot contract out our food policy to an industry whose gospel is “cheap as chips”. The Government must take back its role as consumer protector from the supermarkets and the food industry — and ensure that the real interests of ordinary shoppers are upheld.

We must also put a lot more effort into helping the most vulnerable to feed themselves in an era of ever-rising prices. We can do little to stop global food inflation. But we can stop British consumers from being misled and begin to value food properly.

What did her predecessor, Ladyman do, apart from disappearing as soon as he lost his seat. So much for Ladyman's Thanet that we had to suffer weekly in the Gazette like he cared about us. Get real 18:21 you are talking about politicians here and all they do is soundbites. Blair was good at it, Cameron is good at it, Obama is good at it, but what do they actually achieve for you and I apart from screw things up. Everytime I think I have got my retirement plans in place along comes a Brown to mess up my private pension fund, then an Osborne to delay my state pension, then I need five more years contributions than I thought and my endowment is f****d because both Major's and Blair's governments managed to create adverse investment conditions such that it will not pay off the mortgage. They are all the same, my friend, incompetent, but none of them finish up poor. Just the likes of you and I do.

We're agreed George. Laura is the same sort of party nonentity as Ladyman. If there's a minimum wage why is there not a minimum pension? Governemnts don't create economies they jsut tax them and add civil servants to tax them some more. At least FOI now should detail the costs of bureaucracy.

That is as maybe, 18:42, but will it change anything. There used to be a contributor to the Thanet blogs who talked about the people waking up and seeing through the establishment. He claimed their days were numbered yet, sadly it would seem, he did not last long enough to see the new dawn. Look at the USA, the land of the free, an economic power house and they produce a 'yes we can' democrat who doesn't and a gaff prone republican as their best candidates for president.

The decline of this country over my lifetime has been headlong and frightening yet has any government arrested that slide even for a moment, no. Yet, we the people, theoretically the ones with the power to choose, wage our endless petty party war, loosing sight of the attributes of the individuals in the process. Thus we choose, on party lines, between 'Ego trip' Hart and 'Bumbling' Bayford in Thanet or huggy Dave and plasticine man Ed at national. Scary really!

Agree with much of this - although you don't choose as such at local or national level. Most people just don't vote. And that really worries the parties because they have no popular mandate. In effect 50-70% of the electorate have voted no. And no wonder when in the deepest recession Lords reform and gay marriages are somehow seen as important. Or in thanet petty bickering or citing national policies for inaction.

Very funny, but do you think it's fair? The arguments I'm always hearing are that (a) they're not as good at doing the job as older people, & (b) to encourage people to employ them, but couldn't we use the same arguments for pensioners and the disabled? It's discrimination, which no politician is interested in fighting as there's no votes in it!

You're right it is unfair, just like no vote at 16 yet. Things like the Minimum Living Wage will improve the minimum wages structure and should be from 16 upwards, even a 4 day working week and minimum pension. Removing free education is similarly anti-youth: the old folks had the benefits of a free education, libraries, playing fields etc etc but are now denying it to the next generation.

While on this food topic you can imagine the horsemeat muck that's put into school dinners etc. I can't understand why the lips, eyes, sinews etc are not banned from meat products. And through Ramsgate every few weeks we've live animal exports with them confined in lorries for days, scratching each other etc etc before eventually ending up on your plate.

A discussion on food gets hijacked by the banned flights person. Michael, someone is determined to screw your blogsites so maybe he thinks you overcharged him for a book. More likely you deleted some of his naming comments.

My pleasure, Michael, whilst elsewhere back on Thanetonline on an earlier Royal Sands posting, MOP, alias you know who, is back to naming councillors in an alleged perjury case. Latest comment on your side bar.

Think I have the worst of it now Tom, I am reluctant to change the way comment is allowed on both blogs as it feels like caving in but I think I am going to have to set comments to signed on blogger members only when I go out.

In an attempt to reduce the overnight spam and inappropriate comment I have changed the comment settings stopping anonymous comment I will allow them again in the morning once I have had an adequate breakfast.

Please note comments that may be libellous, comments that may be construed as offensive and anonymous derogatory comments about real people will be deleted. Also note the facility to leave anonymous comment will be turned of during periods when I am unable to monitor comment, this will not affect people commenting who are signed on to their blogger accounts.